The wicked instruments b.., p.1
The Wicked Instruments Books 1-4, page 1
The Wicked Instruments
Books 1-4
D.C Fergerson
Table of Contents
The Singer and the Charlatan
Chance Encounters
Lunch With Lloyd
Specialties
Room for One More
Lost and Found
The Hand that Feeds You
Recycling
A Charming Proposition
Aspirations and Consequences
Truths and Lies
Finding Purpose
Tuning Up The Band
Are We There Yet?
People and Places
Tear
Gifts
Origin
Infectious
Saul, For Better or Worse
For Worse
Better Than That, At Least
The Power of Beer
Today’s Special
The Art of Negotiation
Lost in Translation
Same Old Stench
Form R226
Errand Elf
Concert of the Millennium
Hopes and Dreams
Missing Persons
Can’t Fix Crazy
Hanging After the Show
In the Palm of Their Hand
Nobody Home
About the Author
The Princess and the Holy Juggernaut
Lifting the Spirits
A New Day
Back on the Road
Rats Among Us
Sacrifices
Humbler Means
Best Left Forgotten
A Hard Soft
Stuck in the Past
The Holy Juggernaut
Of Golems and Hillbillies
Leanna’s First Date
The Champion of Bruin
Last Rites
Ties That Bind
Small Victories
A Boob in Each Hand
Out With the New, In With the Old
Incidents and Accidents
At the Limits
Trouble in the Outhouse
Meanwhile
Fish in a Barrel
Weddings and Funerals
Honeymoons and Wakes
Cooling Off
Eyes on the Prize
Coincidence
First Day on the Job
Opening Act
Coronation, Celebration, Indoctrination
Unclaimed Baggage
Savoring the Moment
Truth Hurts
In Good Hands
About the Author
Goblins, Parents, and Other Monsters
A Calm Before the Storm
Audience Day
A Lesson in Talking Pets
A Mirror Into the Future
Heads of State
Getting the Job Done
All-Seeing
Greener Grass
The Elephant in the Room
Mother Knows Best
The Worst That Could Happen
Home Is Where the Heart Breaks
A License to Haunt
Happily Ever Uncertain
Foreign Relations
Audience Day, Revisited
Doubt
Haunting Melody
When a Plan Comes Together
Family Planning
Open Mouth, Insert Foot
About the Author
Murder, Heresy, and Other Mishaps
So That’s Where You’ve Been
Exposed Knees and Other Sins
Someone Breaks the Law
Law and Order
Missed Her Calling
Best Laid Plans
Wet Spaghetti
The Band Plays On
A Bump in the Road
The Repurposed Outhouse
Father’s Favorite
Mother Still Knows Best
Faith Made Real
Blood in the Streets
Assault Team Alpha
No Way Out
The Recruiter
Assault Team Beta
A Dying Wish
A Time For Heroes
Lessons Learned
About the Author
The Singer and the Charlatan
by
D.C. Fergerson
The Wicked Instruments
The Singer and the Charlatan
The Princess and the Holy Juggernaut
Goblins, Parents, and Other Monsters
Murder, Heresy, and Other Mishaps
All available in Ebook and Paperback!
© 2016-2018 D.C. Fergerson
All rights reserved. No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without permission from the publisher, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law. For permissions contact:
dcfergerson@gmail.com
To Catherine...we made a Leanna.
To Jessica, Trixi is the heart and soul of this book.
To Carlos, never stop telling stories.
The Four ride again.
Chance Encounters
Leanna Moonbody stepped out of Top’s Inn, adjusted the guitar case on her back, and dragged out a young nobleman by his ear. The spring sun made her bright blue eyes squint. Undaunted, her heels clicked against the cobblestones of Kingsfield’s Main Street. The noble tried to put up a fight, but Leanna tugged his ear and forced him to follow. She ignored the boy’s complaints and threats, opting to smile and bow her head to each passing onlooker as she made her way towards the Knight’s Guard barracks.
“My lord will have your head for this,” the young man protested.
Leanna stopped in the street and faced him. “Your lord? Who are you?”
The nobleman craned his neck to look up at the songstress. “I am John, Page of Lord Lloyd Demarq.”
“Page?” Leanna kicked him in the shin. “You’re not even important! You’re an errand boy for some lord I’ve never even heard of and you interrupted my performance!”
The bustling streets of Kingsfield slowed to point and laugh at the scolded nobleman as Leanna continued walking him down Main Street.
“Where are you taking me?” John demanded.
“You’re taking me! I want to meet this lord of yours and explain to him what a thoughtless, rude little boy he has sent out in his name,” Leanna said.
“You can’t do that, my master would never tolerate such insolence from a strange woman,” he replied.
“I’m Leanna Moonbody. There, I’m not strange anymore. Now you can properly introduce me.”
John walked at an awkward angle down the street, past the merchant’s square, heading toward Tiger Street. His face flushed red, and he stared at the ground to avoid the gaze of onlookers of his woeful state.
“Please,” John begged. “Please let me go, and I will take you to my master.”
Leanna gripped him closer. “...and introduce me properly?”
“Of course!”
“What’s my name?”
“Lenora Moon. Mooney. Please don’t kick me again.”
Leanna released the boy, and he got his first good look at the fair Leanna. Her fiery red hair glowed in the light of the sun. She wore a light blue dress, tailored to fit and accentuate an ample bust, as was the latest style. He was stricken by her beauty and fashion, as any man would be. He stood up with his mouth hanging open.
“Leanna Moonbody,” she said again.
“Leanna Moonbody, of course. My apologies. For everything.”
Leanna turned her head and motioned him forward. “As well you should be.”
“Had I known a proper lady was in that tavern, I would never have...,” John trailed off.
Leanna raised an eyebrow. “What? If I wasn’t dressed like this, it would have been alright to barge in with your silly bulletin?”
“My master implored me to put up the bulletins where all the sell-swords would be,” John said. “What would bring you to sing your songs in such a place?”
“I go where the crowds are,” Leanna replied. “How much farther?”
“This way, not far,” John said.
Once they passed the Knight’s Guard barracks, standing before the Great Cathedral, John led her left, down Tiger Street, a place not known to have done well in Kingsfield. They veered around the large potholes in the cobblestone street and the few shady characters that walked the street in the lunch hour. Each step brought Leanna further into squalor. Many of the homes were in disrepair, and Lord Lloyd’s estate was no exception to that rule. It was the kind of decrepit manor home that old, stodgy men hid in, waiting to throw rocks at children for coming onto their property.
Leanna turned her nose up at the lack of refinement in the decor as she approached the entrance. Vines grew wild up the rusted gate and scaled the manor up ahead. Windows were foggy and blacked out by dark curtains. The riffraff waiting at the door was no better, either. She first noticed a filthy, ugly dwarf with a great chestnut beard that he hadn’t washed since his last meal. He turned toward her, revealing a scar down his right cheek that somehow managed to make him uglier than he was when glimpsed. Beside him was a detestable looking halfling, dressed in leather armor. Halflings were even smaller than dwarves and nowhere near as stout. Even as fit as this one was, he still bore a resemblance to a malnourished toddler.
The other side of the front door was more appreciable. A fair-skinned, blue-eyed priestess in white robes turned to Leanna and smiled from beneath her hood. She stood beside a fetching young man who knew how to dress the p
art of one about to hold court with a noble. His short-cropped black hair and shaven face were as well-groomed as his custom-tailored vest over a white, bell-cuffed shirt.
“What are they all waiting for?” Leanna asked.
John sized up the small group as he walked Leanna through the untended lawn toward a cracked stone stoop before the door. “That inn was not my first stop, my lady, it was my last.”
Leanna and John joined the group at the front stoop. The dwarf spoke ahead of everyone else.
“You the guy that posted the bulletins all over town?”
“Yes, sir, you shall all have court with my master. First, there is some business to be handled with this young lady here.”
Leanna smiled and bowed her head at the group, approaching the priestess and offering her hand.
“I’m Leanna Moonbody, a pleasure to meet you.”
“Priestess Trixi. And this is Jonathan, we just met,” the young woman replied with a smile.
“Pleasure, my lady,” Jonathan kissed her hand. “Have we met?”
“I don’t think so,” Leanna replied. She was sure she would remember such a fine looking man.
The songstress offered a pleasant smile to the dwarf, but not her hand, and introduced herself to them as well.
“Cort,” the dwarf said in a gravelly voice as ugly as his face. “I forgot this dipshit’s name.”
“Weevil,” the halfling announced with pride. He smiled with a mouth full of yellow teeth. Leanna had to avert her gaze not to sneer.
“Well, pleasure to meet you all. I play in Top’s Inn, you should come and hear me sometime. Right now, I have business with this Lord Lloyd about his bulletins and this foolish boy that’s been posting them.”
“Hey,” Cort shouted, stopping Leanna and John as they tried to walk by. “Why does she get special audience for the job and not us? We were here first!”
Leanna thought about it for a moment and looked back at John.
“He’s right. They shouldn’t be inconvenienced because of me. Anything I have to say to your master about you I can say in front of them. Let’s get on with it.”
John led the five of them past the creaking front door into the foyer, overlooking a grand staircase. The place smelled of ancient tomes and ancient cleaning methods. The sunlight faded out from every window by dark, thick, musty, maroon curtains.
“M’lord, I have acquired several candidates for your mission!” John called out.
From the second floor landing, an old man crept a path along the banister, stopped, and looked out over the group. He looked like the type of old, bitter, stodgy man that would trip someone with his cane, immediately apologize, and then smile about it as he walked away. Whatever long, gray hair he had left ran out in every direction, trying to be rid of him.
“Quite a group, there,” Lloyd remarked.
“First, m’lord, I present you with Leanna Moonbody. She wished to speak with you on a separate matter,” John said.
“I would like to, yes,” Leanna said, with the practiced, formal curtsey of a countess.
“A separate matter?” Lloyd inquired. He didn’t budge from his perch.
“Yes. Your page here, Joe or Jay or whatever, felt your message so important that it required interrupting my performance at Top’s Inn.”
“Well, that is a mess, indeed,” Lloyd replied. “You have my apologies, of course. What house do you belong to, my dear lady?”
“I am from the south, m’lord.”
Lloyd nodded with understanding, even if no one else in the room could fathom what that meant.
“Did you travel all this way by yourself, to our Kingsfield?”
“I did.”
“Fire, beauty, and you can take care of yourself on the dangerous roads here from the south. You’d be a valuable addition to the group I’m hiring for,” Lloyd said. “Are you good with the blade? Magic? Surely you didn’t protect yourself with good luck.”
“No one would want to hurt me,” Leanna explained as though the lord were a child. “I can perform some magic, of course, but I’m not looking for a job.”
“Shame. It pays two hundred gold coins.”
“Each?” Cort interrupted.
Lloyd’s brow furrowed at the filthy dwarf. “No, for the lot of you.”
“Nah, we’re a package deal,” the dwarf explained. “Two hundred each, and you get the five of us.”
“It is not your place to question the reward,” John said.
Lord Lloyd giggled to himself and waved John silent. He found great amusement in Cort’s audacity. His raspy laughter was equal parts sinister and childish, as if he had just kicked a house cat.
“You don’t even know what the job is, yet,” the lord said.
“For two hundred gold, pretty sure none of us will give a shit,” Cort replied. “You put up the bulletins all over town, we answered. Pretty sure we’re the only ones coming.”
Lloyd mulled over the dwarf’s proposition and glanced at Leanna. “What say you, my lady? If I invite these adventurers to my lunch table, will you join us?”
Leanna looked over the motley group, giving a particular eye to the audacious dwarf that tried to involve her. On the other hand, two hundred gold could finally finance a trip to Saul, the music capital of the world. It was far better than singing for coppers at Top’s Inn, that much was certain. She brought her eyes back to the decrepit face of Lord Demarq, his attempts at a warm smile failing to look anything less than perverse.
“I will hear what you have to say, m’lord,” Leanna said.
“Wonderful,” Lloyd clapped. “John, escort our guests to the dining hall. We shall eat and discuss business.”
Lunch With Lloyd
Leanna sat to the right of the empty chair at the head of the table, uncomfortably awaiting Lord Demarq to join them. After finishing their meal, an uncomfortable silence set in. The halfling, Weevil, sat across from her, setting down his glass.
“The wine is good,” Weevil said.
The dwarf beside him nodded, looking into his empty glass. He folded his filthy, soaked beard into his mouth and slurped.
“Not half bad, yeah,” Cort said, pointing at the cup. “Maybe top me off, there, Johnny?”
Leanna rolled her eyes and looked away in disgust. Two hundred gold made for some questionable partners.
Lord Lloyd Demarq finally broke the tension as he entered the room, carrying with him a polished metal urn under one arm. He hobbled to the table at a snail’s pace, the sound of his cane scraping along the floor with each step. He reached the head of the table and placed the urn in front of him.
“What ya got there, Lloyd?” Cort asked.
“The past, and the future,” Lloyd giggled to himself.
Jonathan leaned forward, past the priestess beside him. “Cryptic, although I’m sure that has something to do with this job?”
